Page 93 - Christ and Culture Textbook

Study Section 16: God’s Glory and Culture

16.1 Connect

This section is designed to challenge us as minister to think honestly about our short coming
in line with the gospel. All of us are fallen; we seek the glory for ourselves while we
confidently say we are doing it for the Lord. But individual issues within each local setting are
merely symptoms of one root problem. Our pride and sinful attitude put God’s glory at stake.
The exaltation of the individual has become a problem in many churches. The glorification of
the self has served to undermine the church’s greatest purpose is to glorify the God. This
maybe the result of conscious pride or willful rebellion toward God; it stems from the submission to the
voices of our culture. Cultural assumptions are brought to Church with us and innocently apply them to
41
our faith and practice. It is true that we are influenced by our culture surroundings. No one is free of
culture influence. Today’s teenagers cannot interact the ways they used to do. Facebook, twitter and
WhatsApp has taken place for interactions. We are not called to abandon technology, democracy and
social media. But the biggest problem is that the created things have taken the place of God in our
hearts. The commitments and priorities that we have set reveals what is most important in our lives. Is
God still the center of our lives? Whom are we worshiping? How can we put God in his place?

16.2 Objectives

1. The student should be able to look at unique ministry challenges, specifically Idol worship and
Self- Glory.

2. The student should be able to describe how technology, social media and Facebook has
impacted the Christian community

3. The student should be able to exalt God and give him the glory that he deserves every aspect of our
lives.

16.3 Putting God in his place

At every point in history, the church has dealt with new issues, trends, and cultures as they
have risen, and our age is no difference. When we take secular ideas and apply them to our
own lives. We open the door for culture influence in the Church. There is so much idolatry the
church today. Even though Christians continually and rightly affirm the desire to glorify God,
the cultural values we express in church asserts just the opposite through the elevation of
ourselves. Every believer needs to examine these cultural dilemmas. Many of the cultural
realities that influences the today’s Church are difficult to see because the church is blinded by them.
There is a need for us to teach and live the Bible in order to keep God at the center and engage the
unhealth cultural ideas.

41 Matt Whitman, Matt Ostercamp, Aron Utecht and Mark Coddington Putting God in his place Exalting
God in the ICulture(NextStep Resources, 2011),9.

92